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EECS Weekly News: June 26, 2017

ANNOUNCEMENTS

A video recording of the EECS graduation celebration is available on YouTube.

IN THE NEWS

Engineering Community With Social Roboticist Heather KnightIf you brought a robot to a party, it could remember the names of everyone you meet, serve as the catalyst to striking up conversations, and even smooth any conversational lulls with a perfectly programmed sense of comedic timing. This type of robot-human collaboration is just one example of the interesting questions Dr. Heather Knight asks and answers as a social roboticist. Put plainly: She works on building robots that excel at human interaction and are social and charismatic. Magenta

Making robots more human at Cannes LionsCan a social roboticist calm any of the base fears about a cyborg uprising? Dr Heather Knight, post-doc at Stanford University and rising computer science professor at Oregon State University, thinks the reality is a little more sedate: “Hollywood thinks the robots are coming, but when you work building robots, most mornings it’s more like ‘why won’t you turn on?!” Knight wants to make our devices more charismatic, and robot sidekick Ginger, who joined her on stage, certainly ticks that box. The Guardian

Mechanism shown to reverse disease in arteriesA certain immune reaction is the key, not to slowing atherosclerosis like cholesterol-lowering drugs do, but instead to reversing a disease that gradually blocks arteries to cause heart attacks and strokes. This is the finding of a study in mice led by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and published online June 26 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Stephen Ramsey, assistant professor of computer science and biomedical sciences is part of this team. EurekAlert!

Solving the problem of insecure devicesAttila Altay Yavuz has an ambitious goal to make our devices safer from cyberattacks. The good news for everyone is that Yavuz, an assistant professor of computer science at Oregon State University, has just received a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation which will guarantee funding for his research for the next five years. EECS

NOT NEWS, BUT OF INTEREST

Facebook: These are the kinds of people we want to hireJeff Reynar is a director of engineering and New York site lead at Facebook. He interviews between 50 and 100 people annually for various technical roles. Since Facebook regularly lands near the top of lists of the best companies to work for, we asked Jeff what it took to land a job at the massive social network. Business Insider

Building a gaming community fueled by Oregon talentPipeworks Studio’s technical director, Dan White, and his team are creating the game development studio of the future in Eugene, and he says it all starts by assembling the right team. “There’s a lot of really excellent talent attending in-state schools like University of Oregon and Oregon State University. I think our new hires are emblematic of that,” White said. Portland Business Journal

HubSpot will give someone $100K to quit their job and start a companyMassachusetts-based HubSpot Inc. is hoping to find the next great entrepreneur in its Facebook comments section. The marketing software firm plans to give away $100,000 to an aspiring founder as part of its #SummerStartup competition. Anyone from the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia can enter the competition by posting a description of their startup idea in 25 words or less in response to this video on HubSpot's Facebook page. New York Business Journal

OPPORTUNITIES

Code Jam Kickstart These single, online rounds of algorithmic puzzles are designed by Google engineers specifically for students. Kickstart is a great opportunity for students to develop their coding skills, get acquainted with the Code Jam competition arena, and potentially get noticed by Google recruiters, too. (Top participants may be contacted by a Google recruiter.)

Google Actions Challenge Turn inspiration into action by building apps for the Google Assistant on Google Home, select Android devices, and the iPhone. Enter to win more than 20 prizes including a trip to Google I/O 2018. Your app must be approved by August 31 to be eligible, so start building! Entry info and contest guidelines are at g.co/actionschallenge.

LGBT Engineering Conference October 20-22 | Palo Alto, CA LGBTQ Engineering student? You can attend the Out for Undergrad: Engineering Conference in Palo Alto. The due date for the priority round of applications is April 28, but applications will be accepted until May 14. Each year, we select a diverse class of top-performing LGBTQ students from around the country. We invite them to attend our industry-focused conferences: weekend-long summits where we work with LGBTQ professionals to educate students about job opportunities in highly competitive industries — and inspire them to pursue challenging, ambitious careers.

SCHOLARSHIPS/FELLOWSHIPS

AfterCollege Engineering & Technology Student Scholarship $500 - Open to currently enrolled students pursuing a degree in a field of engineering, technology and/or mathematics. Minimum 3.0 GPA. Must be a U.S. Citizen. Application deadline: June 30.

AfterCollege STEM Inclusion Scholarship $500 - Open to currently enrolled students working toward a degree in a field of Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics from a group underrepresented in their field of study. Underrepresented groups may be defined by: gender, race, ethnic background, disability, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic status, nationality and other non-visible differences. Minimum 3.0 GPA. Application deadline: June 30.

Explore the latest technology from Rockwell Automation and our PartnerNetworkTM Members

Ignite TAO: Bend v1Thursday, Aug 17 | 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm | OSU Cascades | TAO Member or Non Member - $5; Student - $3Ignite is a high-energy evening of 5-minute talks by local people who have a burning idea and the guts to get onstage and share their personal and professional passions. Quick, fun, thought-provoking, social, local, and global - Ignite is all of these and more. Ignite TAO: Bend will focus on topics around all kinds of tech. What new products, services or research can really take technology to the next level? Speakers are from the local Bend community with representatives across many verticals - we want to hear from you! Proposals should be submitted online by June 30, 2017.

JOB SEARCH AND CAREER ADVICE

Here’s how to look impressive in video calls, according to Hollywood expertsAs video calls are becoming more popular for everything from interviews to conferences to daily catch-ups with remote teams, you have to step up your video game. It takes a lot of vigilance. Ladders

This is the email smart people send when they're rejected for a jobIt’s tempting to slink off into a dark corner and pretend the whole thing never happened. Getting the old “thanks, but no thanks” is humbling enough, without having to swallow your pride, paste on a smile, and write something friendly and professional in return. USA Today College

How to Translate Your Tech Skills to Any IndustryWith today's focus on cool tech companies and startups, it can be easy to forget that there are plenty of innovative tech jobs outside of this realm. In fact, tech talent is in high demand in virtually every sector. So, if you're looking for greener pastures, it's worth looking past the usual suspects and considering other industries — particularly those that are putting a premium on tech talent. The Muse

JOBS

Student App Developer - Univ of OregonThe SMART-CLT project team is looking for an employee who can create a new Android OS and Apple iOS smart phone application through the modification of existing code from a previously created Android application. This application will help in measuring the performance of a mass timber building in terms of user comfort within that space. The ideal candidate will be self motivated and have experience with programming/coding in C++ (Visual Studio), the Android Platform (Java), and the Apple iOS platform.

Undergraduate Teaching Assistant - OSU Department of Physics The Undergraduate Teaching Assistant assists instructors in undergraduate level Physics courses as directed. Duties may include proctoring exams or grading homework, mid-term and final exams. More advanced students may run discussion or laboratory sections.

Collaboratory Developer - OSU School of Electrical and Computer Engineering This position performs a wide variety of work that supports the quality of education in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the university. Collaboratory Developers work to create new and targeted solutions for education, industry, and research. These positions can include multiple aspects including: electronic design, coding, mechanical design, web coding, hardware fabrication, store clerk sales, and tutorial development.

Specialist Engineer JD - HP Security Lab, Bristol UK The research agenda in the Security Lab is broad, and we are constantly innovating across device security, infrastructure security and security management. This position will be within our infrastructure security team, where we develop new paradigms for securing current and future device eco-systems. Our work ranges from communications security architectures, to user authentication paradigms or the security of provisioning and management architectures that support an increasingly diverse range of devices and usage models.

Web Developer - OSU Extended Campus The Web Developer provides programming support for OSU Extended Campus programmatic and course needs. This position works as part of the Course Development and Training team, collaborating with faculty, administrators and other clients to design and develop instructional technology and other web-based educational resources for courses and modules. This Web Developer designs, develops, tests, implements, and maintains web and multimedia applications. This position collaborates with colleagues in OSU Extended Campus and other partners to design and assemble the programming and media necessary to carry out design plans as conceived by assigned instructional designers.